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Can the Bible be funny?


If you would like to listen to me reading this essay, then hit play on this recording. I find it super helpful when my favourite writers record their essays in a podcast style, so I thought I'd give it a go myself. Let me know if you appreciate it.



 

I've learnt over my project that this is a question that divides people rather harshly. The 'nays' are outraged by the 'ayes' and the 'ayes' are perplexed by the 'nays'. I've hypothesised (totally anecdotally!) that your reaction to the question is often built upon your formational years as a Christian/in Church/School. The Church, community, and teaching each person receives in their early stages of learning about the Bible so frequently makes the decision for them.


I had always assumed that there could be humour in the Bible as there's definitely a whole range of human emotions, but that we never considered it as it's not that common. However some of my friends had challenged this idea, saying that we never consider humour in the Bible because laughing at/with the Bible is inappropriate. So, I began this journey to answer their question first, as it felt like the rest of my project depended on it!


So what actually is humour?

Humour comes in many shapes–through comedy, wit, joke, satire, sarcasm, irony, caricature, travesty, and parody.[1] To add to its complexity, it is highly subjective, killed by over-explanation and often best delivered through the holistic nature of the whole person; body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions.


One of the top psychological studies of humour sets out the main discussion about what humour is under the chapter title ‘on the impossibility of defining humour’ which doesn't really help us out that much.[2] It's hard work to define humour, but I will be defining humour as anything that has the capacity to cause or feel amusement, being aware that humour is much more than joke-making.[3]


So, humour and the Bible...

Many philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have railed against the idea that there might be humour in the Bible, stating humour as totally contradictory to the Bible’s god-breathed, holy words, with some even suggesting it is blasphemous to treat the Bible as anything but sacred. [4] John Chrysostom said, ‘neither Paul or any other saint laughed, … except for Sarah who was rebuked for it and the son of Noah who was condemned to slavery for it’.[5] When up against such condemning words, so early on in Christianity’s history it is easy to see why we hardly ever consider humour in the Bible. However, Ecclesiastes states that there is a ‘time to weep, and a time to laugh’, so surely in a book that covers such a wide range of human stories, where we often see tears and are moved to tears ourselves, within those stories there should be room for laughter?[6]


Many Christian writers, such as Calvin, denied ‘joie de vivre’ which carries the lack of humour into the middle ages.[7] In addition, the serious practice of reading the Bible that was upheld by the Reformation disbarred humour from the conversation, and created the impression of a text that is totally serious. Landy criticises this, suggesting that the over-reverence of Scripture can become idolatrous and is more of a hindrance than a help to the understanding of the meaning of the texts.[8] Interestingly, Karl Barth saw humour as a necessity to receiving the righteousness of God, suggesting that pure gratitude, deepest humility and free humour (that the very fact we can receive the righteousness, holiness, honour of God is hilarious) helps humanity receive.[9] When considering the aim of the Bible, in short, to convince humankind of the love of a God that saves, we find that it is not a simple task to succeed in, and so surely all weapons in the arsenal of persuasive writing should be employed? [10] Humour is a powerful tool; ‘Only humour can blow to rage and nothing can stand against it’. [11]


So how do we know if something is humourous? In short, we can never be fully certain as it all comes down to the reader’s sensitivity and empathy.[12] Freud suggests that humour can reside behind smiling and laughter, but also mockery, derision and scorn, which gives many options for potential humour in Biblical texts.[13] We must too be careful of reading humour in where it does not exist – Kuschel rightly warns against gymnastics to get it into the text.[14] However, through the increase in Jewish scholarship on literary analysis in the last few decades, there has been an abundance of scholarship considering humour in texts which is encouraging for the validity of finding humour in Jonah.[15]


Voetzel suggests that God finds God’s people funny – that watching people trying to hinder the immortal, unchangeable plans of God is a source of comedy for God.[16] This ties in with the age-old joke that many of faith recall, ‘if you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans’. We must remember that humour is not just that which makes us laugh, but that which causes us to snort derisively, to roll our eyes, or tricks us into self-condemnation. This opens up a wider range of comical situations. TS Eliot is supposed to have said that ‘humankind cannot bear much reality’ and we often turn to humour as a coping mechanism, as a cathartic release of wild emotion.[17] Landy suggests it is proportional: ‘the greater the onslaught on our sensibilities, the more exciting is the effort to contain it’.[18]


So, can we find the Bible funny? Well, the decision lies with each person, and I encourage you to draw your own conclusion, but I personally think that we absolutely can find the Bible funny. We have to be careful, we can't shoe-horn comedy into everything, but if the author of the text intended it to be funny, we absolutely are allowed to enjoy that humour!



 

References:

[1] YT Radday, ‘On Missing the Humour in the Bible: An Introduction’, in On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990), 22; Francis Landy, ‘Humour as a Tool for Biblical Exegesis’, in On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990), 100. [2] Robert Escarpit, L’humour (Belin-Beliet: Presses Universataires De France, 1963), 23 in; Yehudah T. Radai and Athalya Brenner, eds., On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 92 (Sheffield: Almond Pr, 1990). [3] Athalya Brenner, ‘On the Semantic Field of Humour, Laughter and the Comic in the Old Testament’, in On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1990), 39. [4] Radday, ‘Missing the Humour’, 22. [5] John Chrysostom in Screech and Grafton, Laughter at the Foot of the Cross, 48; in Jones, ‘Rolling in the Aisles’, 25–26. [6] Ecclesiastes 3.3

[7] Radday, 35. [8] Landy, ‘Humour as a Tool for Biblical Exegesis’, 99. [9] Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics, 1st pbk. ed, vol. III, 4 (London ; New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2004), 764 in; Jonasson, Humour and Irony in the New Testament, 29. [10] Radday, ‘Missing the Humour’, 32. [11] Potentially Mark Twain

[12] Radday, ‘Missing the Humour’, 33. [13] Brenner, ‘Semantic Field of Humour, Laughter and Comic’, 39 Psalms 2, 37 and 59 contain these elements. [14] Karl-Josef Kuschel, Laughter: a theological essay (London: SCM Press, 1994), 68 in; Jones, ‘Rolling in the Aisles’, 30. [15] Radday, ‘Missing the Humour’, 34. [16] Voetzel in Jonasson, Humour and Irony in the New Testament, 48. [17] TS Eliot cited in Radai and Brenner, On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible, 105. [18] Landy, ‘Humour as a Tool for Biblical Exegesis’, 105.










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